


How Far the Distance

by Crysania



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Rated M for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23155303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crysania/pseuds/Crysania
Summary: Rey is working on the communications array when she connects with someone from across the galaxy. One voice. One moment in time. That’s all it takes to change a life.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 13
Kudos: 107
Collections: Reylo Charity Anthology: Volume 2





	How Far the Distance

Rey’s fiddling with the controls the first time she hears his voice. It’s unexpected. She hasn’t heard anyone speaking her language in what feels like decades. Here they all speak some form of Basic that’s been cobbled together from a variety of alien languages, including ones from her home planet of Earth. But his voice comes through loud and clear as she’s turning the knobs.

“Fuck!”

She giggles. She can’t help it. She hits another button, leans toward the seldom-used microphone attached to the communication equipment. “Hello?” 

“Fuck,” the voice says again. “How do you turn this thing off?” There’s some indistinct chatter from somewhere farther away than the voice, and then the line goes dead.

She crosses her arms over her chest and leans back. She liked his voice, curse words and all. There’s something about it: deep and dark, like the chocolate she misses from back home. But mostly she misses the cadence of Earth speakers. There are others here, who speak a language close to her people’s, but it’s not the same. Never the same.

Not that she knows who her people are. She was dumped here so long ago, abandoned to a desert planet with an atmosphere she can’t even breathe. She wonders, more often than not, what it would be like to be _outside_ , to be able to breathe the air without some sort of apparatus, to not be confined to giant domes that only allow a tease of the outside without actually letting you be a _part_ of it.

She wonders where _he_ is.

_Who_ he is?

She turns the knobs several more times, but there’s nothing more than static. With a sigh, she returns to her work on the communications array. Maybe she’ll hear him again…sometime…

* * *

The second time she hears his voice, she’s back working on the communications array. Rose Tico, one of her best friends on the base, is working alongside her. The array fails.

It fails _a lot_.

It seems all she does these days is work on the array and then collapse in the tiny bunk she calls home. 

“What are you doing?” Rose asks as Rey fiddles with the knobs.

“Nothing,” Rey murmurs. She wants to hear that voice again and she can’t quite understand why. There was something compelling about it, something that pulls her in, something she can’t stop thinking about.

She turns the knob again and there’s a crackling noise. And then voices. Nothing close to the microphone. It’s all far from whatever microphone there is on the other end. She can’t make out any of the words, so she leans forward. “Hello?”

Rose is on her in a moment, gripping her shoulder. “What are you doing?” she asks again, this time in a bit of a hiss. There’s a wild look about her eyes as she watches Rey, and then glances back at the door. 

“This thing is on again,” someone says. It’s not _him_.

“Turn it off.” _That_ is him, whoever he is.

“No,” Rey says quickly. “Please…don’t…”

“Rey, we’re not supposed to be using it this way,” Rose says in her ear, but when she turns to look at her, she can see that there’s some sort of interest there. Like she’s just saying the words to keep whoever may be outside the room from thinking she’s involved in whatever shenanigans Rey is up to.

There’s another sharp crackled and then _his_ voice again. “Why is this thing connecting us?”

“I don’t know,” Rey answers.

“Who are you?” he asks. He sounds less annoyed this time.

Rey glances over at Rose, just briefly, before answering. “I’m Rey.”

She waits for a response, but then the line goes dead, and she’s not sure if it just failed again or if he cut it off. 

“Who is he?” Rose asks.

Rey shrugs. “I have no idea.” She doesn’t tell her anything else, just moves past the controls and continues to tinker with the thing. She wants to bring him back, demand his name, where he is. _Anything_. It’s a strange, unsettling feeling.

It’s not like she’s really all that happy where she is. Just another one of the people enslaved to Unkar Plutt’s junkyard, fixing up tech so he can sell it. So she dreams, a lot really. Of the outdoors. Of getting off the planet. Of _something_.

_But your parents_ …

And she wonders, sometimes, if they really will come back for her.

* * *

_Rey_. Ben turns the name over inside his head. It’s a strange name for a girl, for a woman he supposes. He has no idea how old she is, if the voice on the other end of the line is a teenager, is a young woman. She sounds young.

He wants to find out.

Fuck, that’s a weird feeling. 

He doesn’t know her, doesn’t know what she looks like, but there’s something about that _voice_. The slight lilt as she says her name. It sends a little shiver down the back of his spine.

“What are you doing?”

Ben cuts the line and turns back to Poe. Maybe some other time he’ll answer her, tell her who he is. “Nothing,” he mutters.

“Is that thing malfunctioning again?” Poe steps closer to it and Ben turns, placing his too large body between the machine and Poe. _Is_ it malfunctioning? The first time it did, he supposes, suddenly connecting him to a space station across the galaxy somewhere. 

He's wondered where it might be in the couple weeks between then and now.

“I think it’s okay,” Ben says. He’s not really one for subterfuge, and he doesn’t really like lying. But Poe looks concerned and so he needs to brush it off. He needs to hide this. And he doesn’t even know why.

It’s not like they can’t reach out. No one has ever prohibited them from doing it. And sometimes Ben is curious. About what else is out there. About _who_ else is out there.

“Alright, good. We need help over here, big man,” Poe says with a grin. Ben is a good head taller and quite a bit broader than Poe. Somehow he’s become the muscle on their team, easily lifting drums of the fuel that keeps their little world here going.

Sometimes he misses Earth.

Sometimes he misses breathing in the air, feeling the rain on his face. There’s something to be said for climate-control, for the domes that protect them from the toxic atmosphere of the planet they’ve found themselves on. But he still remembers when he and his parents had set off from Earth for this place.

Maybe someday he’ll get out. 

Return home.

_Maybe with Rey_ …

“Right,” he mutters. “Coming!” He has to push ridiculous thoughts like _that_ out of his overly big head. He doesn’t know anything about her except her name and an echo of her voice across the galaxy.

* * *

The third time she hears him it’s the middle of the night. She can’t sleep, something not uncommon for her. There are drugs, of course, illicit ones, that the rest of the junkyard kids pass around. They can help you sleep in that hellhole, forget yourself and your lot in life for a little while.

Jakku is where the less fortunate end up.

She doesn’t remember much of her early life. She’d been five when she’d been taken on a transport to this hellhole of a planet. Sold off, or so Plutt tells her, by parents who needed the money. Drunkards, she hears others whisper. 

_They didn’t love you_ , Plutt tells her. _You’re better off here, girl_.

She’s not sure that’s accurate.

Earth had air, at least. Air and water that she can just barely remember on the edges of her conscious.

Others there are war orphans, parents dead in the unending wars being fought on Earth. Like Rose and her sister Paige, both who had come some years after Rey, quiet and shell-shocked. She’s not sure that’s something they’ll ever get completely over, though Rose has certainly made the best of it. Rey knows that she and their friend Finn have been making eyes at each other for years and sometimes, in the dark of night, she hears them whispering about stealing ships and _leaving_. She pretends not to hear. There’s nothing for her out there. And if she leaves, where would her parents know to find her?

She’s careful to turn the volume down on the array before fiddling with the knobs. The last thing she needs is Plutt or one of his goons to find her where she’s not supposed to be. 

“Hello?” she whispers into the array.

There’s a crackle.

Nothing.

“Is anyone there?” 

Another crackle. 

She almost leaves.

But then…

“Rey?” 

It’s _him_ , and for some reason she breathes a sigh of relief. “You’re here,” she murmurs, her voice a little breathless.

“I shouldn’t be,” comes the reply.

“Are you a slave then too?” Her voice is quiet, a little timid. 

“You’re a slave?” She reaches to turn the volume down, afraid the outburst will wake someone.

She takes a breath, looks back at the door. 

“Rey?” comes his voice again.

“Yes,” she finally answers. “You’re not, then.”

“Fuck no,” he says, then – “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

She shrugs and then realizes he can’t see her. “It’s okay. It’s a terrible thing. I…” She takes another breath. “I’m glad you’re not.”

He doesn’t say anything to that and for a moment she fears he’s gone. “I wish you weren’t,” he murmurs and the words thrill her in a way she doesn’t expect.

“What’s your name?” she asks.

He hesitates.

“Please? I told you mine.”

“Kylo,” he finally says.

“No,” Rey says. No, that’s not right. She knows that’s not his real name.

“It’s all I can give you,” he says. “Take it or leave it.”

“Rey is my real name. Or…as real as it gets…” She’s never been sure if her parents named her or if Plutt picked a name out of the air when she’d been turned over to him. If she’d ever been called anything else, she doesn’t know. So Rey it is.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“I know.”

“Take care, Rey.”

“No!” she starts to say, but then the line is cut and she knows he’s gone. _Kylo_ …She knows it’s not his real name, but it’s _a_ name. She leaves the room as quiet as she left it, returning to the room she shares with the Tico sisters.

“Where have you been?” Rose hisses as soon as the door shuts.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Rey,” Rose says.

Rey curls up on her hard bed, pulling the threadbare blanket over shoulders. The room falls into silence.

“Rose?”

“Yeah?”

“His name is Kylo.”

Rose says nothing in response to that and Rey finds she can finally drift off.

Her dreams that night are filled with a faceless entity that sweeps into the communications room and takes her away on his ship. In her dream, he’s tall, broad, and while she can’t see his face, she knows he’s handsome.

She wonders what Kylo looks like.

* * *

They talk far too many times over the next month. Ben finds himself sneaking away at odd moments . Once he realizes what her schedule is, he drifts into the communications room far too often at that time.

She’s there.

A lot.

He worries about her. If she’s sleeping, if she’s okay. He knows that she’s on some slave planet, sold there by her fucking parents. Losers, the whole lot of them. He hadn’t even known, really, that entire planets of slaves existed.

“You okay, Ben?” Poe comes to sit in front of him at the mess hall.

“Did you know there are whole planets of slaves out there?” The words drop heavily into their conversation and he watches as Poe shifts a little, sits back in his chair.

“I…well, I guess there must be some place all the stuff for weapons is mined,” he muses. But he looks uncomfortable. “How did you find out?”

Ben doesn’t say anything.

He doesn’t know what to say. 

He knows the communication arrays aren’t meant to be used for anything personal. He has an allotted amount of time he can contact people back on Earth, can make calls to friends in far-flung places of the galaxy. But using their comm lines to talk to _someone_ from some slave planet God knows how far away from them? That’s not allowed.

“Her,” Poe says. 

“Her?”

“That voice, the one that you keep turning off when I come in the room.”

Ben can feel the tips of his ears get hot. “I…”

“Oh God, you’ve been talking to her haven’t you? How much?”

Ben sighs. “Probably more than I should be. It was random at first and I’m pretty sure the comm lines were malfunctioning in some way, connecting us. But then I think she started to look for me. We’ve been…” He doesn’t know what to say? Quiet conversations in the middle of the night as they poured bits of themselves out to each other. 

“You’ve gotten close,” Poe surmises.

“In a way.”

“Oh Christ. Ben, why would you do this?” He stands then, grabbing his tray and turning to leave.

Ben stands suddenly, reaching out a hand to grab Poe by the upper arm. “You’re not going to tell anyone?”

Poe looks back at him and his eyebrows rise. “Dammit, Ben. You don’t think you’re in love with this girl, do you? You don’t know anything about her.”

“I…” Ben has no idea how to answer that, not really. There’s this little part of him that calls out to her, this _connection_ that he can’t seem to deny. It pulls him back again and again to talk to her. Every conversation is short, but he finds it doesn’t even matter. He’ll take whatever he gets. 

He makes a noise of frustration in the back of his throat, running a hand through the mess that is his hair. “Nevermind,” he snarls at Poe, and stalks off.

_In love with her? A ridiculous assessment_.

But he wonders, as he makes his way to the comm room, if it’s as ridiculous as he thinks it is.

* * *

“Rey?” 

He’s the one who initiates contact this time. She’s working on something in the communication room, making sure whatever she’s working on that day, she can drag down there just in case the lines connect her to him, just in case he wants to talk to her.

He’s never the one who reaches out.

She practically trips over herself to get to the array, pressing the button and leaning in close. “Kylo?” She can see Paige Tico heading her way and she looks _angry_.

“Rey, this is madness! You need to stop this now before Plutt catches you.”

Rey waves a dismissive hand at her. “Are you okay?” she asks into the microphone.

“I don’t know,” comes his voice. He sounds…sad…and she feels a bit of fear go through her.

“Kylo, what’s wrong?” She doesn’t care if Paige is listening in. She doesn’t care if Plutt comes in. He sounds…not like himself. Forlorn, worried.

“Nevermind,” he says, and then there’s a click and he’s gone.

“Fuck!” Rey says, just to feel how the word sounds in her mouth. She finds she likes the way it feels, the way it sounds.

“Rey, you have to stop this,” Paige says. “Plutt will reassign you. Or have you killed. You remember how Zorii disappeared a year ago, don’t you? We never heard from her again…”

“Maybe she escaped,” Rey suggests.

Paige just gives her a look…one of _those_ looks. “No one escapes.”

And Rey wishes she weren’t so right.

* * *

He needs to stop this.

He _needs_ to.

It’s ridiculous. He knows so little about her. He knows she’s lonely, slaving away on a planet she has no hopes of getting off of. He knows she longs for oceans and blue skies, longs to escape the domed sandy world she’s landed on. She still thinks, sometimes, that her parents might come back.

She’s counting the days. The fucking _days_ since they left her. She knows what the others say about it, she tells him, how she landed where she is. But still she has hopes and dreams and _someday they’ll come back for me_.

He knows it’s not true. _She_ knows it’s not true, but she clings to it anyway.

He asks her, late one night, what she would do if she could leave.

_Everything_ , she tells him. She doesn’t need to elaborate. He knows exactly what she means.

He’s laying in one of the fields on their world. The grass is as fake as everything else here, cultivated to seem _real_. He remembers real grass, remembers how it felt beneath his hands, his bare legs. Soft, smelling of dirt and living things. He buries his nose in this grass and comes up with nothing. It smells a little bit like plastic and the memory of dirt, but nothing more.

“You’re still stuck on this girl,” Poe says as he kicks lightly at his side.

“Jakku,” Ben says, opening one eye to look up at his friend.

“Pardon?”

“I think she’s on Jakku.”

Poe’s brow wrinkles. “What makes you think that?” Ben hadn’t heard of Jakku before, but he had done some research. Inhospitable, primarily a desert, huge populations of slaves. Jakku fit.

“Everything. It just fits the profile.” He shrugs, closes his eyes again.

“What are you going to do about it?” Poe asks after a moment.

Ben shakes his head. What indeed? “I don’t know.”

“You know she could be some eight-hundred pound Hutt, right?” 

Ben smirks, looks back up at him. “She’s not.”

“You’re sure?”

“She doesn’t speak Huttese.”

Poe laughs at that. “I guess you got me there.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ben says, and he realizes just how true that is. It’s her soul, her _spirit_ , that he enjoys. The lilt of her voice and the way she laughs at his dumb jokes. Does it matter if she’s human or Twi’lek or some other species he’s never heard of?

He’s not sure it does.

“Ben, what are you thinking?”

He sits up then, levels his gaze on Poe. “I don’t know, really. When I do, I’ll let you know.”

Poe leaves him then, and he supposes that’s a good thing. There are so many things going through his mind. But at the center of it all is… _I can’t leave her there_.

* * *

“Kylo,” she breathes into the microphone. It’s been nearly two weeks since she last heard his voice and she’s been so distracted. She’d accidentally picked up a hot wire and burned her hand so bad she had to take a day off. Plutt had, of course, taken all her portions and left her starving for the day she couldn’t work.

Paige and Rose had given her some of theirs and so they’d all been a little bit hungry. The sisters had given her dark looks and Paige had told her to forget this _Kylo_ person. He’s no one, just a voice on the array and one she really should cut herself off from.

The sooner the better.

But she sees the look in their eyes, not just worried but _hungry_. They wonder where all this is leading and she knows they dream of leaving the planet. She does too. But…her parents…could she? She’s heard the rumors, of course, that they’d sold her, but she still makes a mark on the wall every single night. One more day without them. One less day until they come back.

_If they come back._

She’s lost track of the day she’s been there just as she’s lost track of the days she’s marked on the wall. Just looking at them makes her stomach clench, like she’s been punched. Hard. It leaves her breathless in ways that are not good.

“Rey?” His voice is quiet. “You’re on Jakku, aren’t you?”

She rears back and away from the array for a moment, before leaning back in. “How did you know?” 

He says nothing for a moment. “Everything fit.”

“You’re too smart for your own good,” Rey murmurs.

“No one here thinks so,” he says and she can hear a smile in the words.

“What do you look like?” she asks, the words slipping out without her really thinking of them. “I mean, I don’t even know if you’re human or…”

“I’m human,” he says.

“Me too.”

“Oh,” he responds with. “Good. I mean…it’s not that it would matter. I don’t… _fuck_.”

She laughs.

She’s not sure how to respond, really. He’s so…awkward about it all. “It’s ok. I mean, at least we know that…” She trails off there. _We’re compatible? Or our parts are?_ Fuck, this is so stupid. She has all these thoughts in her head about him. She likes his deep voice. She likes the way he talks to her. She even thrills to the way he curses.

“I’m tall,” he finally offers. “I mean…stupidly tall.”

“I’m tall too!” she interrupts with. “I mean, for a woman.” 

“Yeah?” He sounds interested there, and she wonders if his thoughts have ever gone to what she might look like, or…well…things. Things she tries not to think about. She doesn’t have time for such things, not in their world.

“Yeah.”

“That’s…I don’t meet a lot of tall women. I like that.”

She’s not sure what to say to that, though it does send a little shiver down her spine. She likes _him_. And it’s ridiculous. This _Kylo Ren_ , whoever he is. He’s _tall_ and she likes his voice.

“I have dark hair,” he adds. “And I’m really fair-skinned. Like, I don’t think I’d last on Jakku, probably burn to a crisp.” A little bit more of him pops into her vision. Dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. She imagines him, tall and thin, a little bit roguish, blaster strapped to the holster at his hip and one hand reaching out to draw her to him.

She’d go with him, if she could. Leave this world behind for wherever he wanted to take them. _But your parents_ …she thinks she could do it, could put it behind her. For him.

She shares her information with him, and she realizes just how lacking it is. Does she tell him that she’s small on top, that she’s a bit too thin and built more like a teenage boy than a woman. There’s a difference in their ages, but it’s not _pronounced_. It’s not like, at 23, she’s not fully grown. It’s just that she’s starving, most of the time, and that leads to little body fat.

She looks at herself in the mirror, sometimes, and wonders what Kylo might think of her too-thin body. 

_He’d be disappointed_.

And she hides that from him. Because he’s a voice on the other end of the line and she can imagine him as anything she wants him to be, her prince, come to take her away.

“I bet you’re pretty,” she hears him murmur. The words are a little muffled, as if he’s speaking with his lips pressed against the microphone, quiet, so no one else will hear.

“Sure,” she responds with.

“I don’t care if you are,” he says and there’s something fervent about the words. “I don’t,” he repeats before she has a chance to say anything else. 

“Kylo…”

“I’m not,” he cuts her off with. “Handsome, I mean. I have a big nose. And big ears.”

“You know what they say about men with big noses,” she interjects with.

He pauses. “What? No…”

“I…nevermind.” She’s not going to go there. Not now. She can’t. 

“Right, okay. But I mean it,” he dives right back in with. “I don’t care what you look like. It doesn’t matter to me.”

She takes a deep breath. “Me either,” she offers up quietly.

They both fall silent, and Rey leans closer to the microphone. She can hear him breathing there, the harshness of his in-drawn breath.

“I wish I could meet you,” he whispers, and she feels a shiver work its way down her spine.

There’s a thump from the hallway and Rey only has a moment to pull herself away from the microphone before the door opens. _Fuck._

“What are you doing, girl?” Plutt is in the doorway and there’s a red flush on his fleshy face. One finger is pointed at her as he storms into the room. “This is off limits at night.”

“Plutt, I…” she starts to say.

There’s a crackle from the comm system and Plutt reaches it before she can. “Who is this?” he says into the microphone.

Another crackle and the line goes dead. _No!_ She’s lost Kylo, _lost him_. There won’t be any getting him back, no late night confessions, and she needs him in her life. He’s the only bright spot, the only thing she’s found that was just _hers_. 

“Who were you talking to?” Plutt says, rounding on her. His hand is raised and she knows if she says the wrong thing, he’s going to strike her.

Or worse.

“N…no one,” she says, holding her hands up in front of her. “I couldn’t…” Plutt brings a hand down and she dodges it, twisting out of the way. “I couldn’t sleep! I came down to work on it. There was no one there.”

A lie.

He knows it’s a lie.

But he stops, narrows his eyes on her. And then he smiles. She knows to be more scared of that smile than anything else, and a frisson of fear winds its way through her body. “You’re being reassigned.”

The words echo in her mind as he grabs her arm and drags her from the room.

_It’s over_.

She’ll never get to talk to him again, never hear his voice, so deep and hypnotic. 

_It’s over_.

She’ll miss him. And as she’s flung out of the room, the door slammed behind her, she wonders if he’ll worry about her. She wasn’t alone.

And now she is.

_Fuck_.

* * *

“No!” he shouts, slamming his hand against the comm panel. “Rey?” He hears the voice behind her. It’s garbled, but the intent is clear. She’s been caught.

_Caught_.

He’s been afraid of this for so long. He’s tried to cut off their communication any number of times, but he finds he _can’t_. He craves her voice, the brightness of her presence. She’s stuck on _Jakku_ of all places, a slave with no place to go. But she’s the bright one, with so much _hope_ that she shines so brightly it almost _hurts_. 

“Rey!” he shouts again and then the comm panel crackles and goes dead. “Fuck!” he says and punches the panel. Again. And then again.

“Ben?” He hears Poe’s voice from the entryway. “Ben!” And then his hand, battered and bloodied, is being pulled away from the half-ruined comm panel.

He turns to look at him and _fuck_ , he can’t see him through the fucking tears in his eyes. Ben usually hides his emotions well, pushing them down beneath anger, beneath hate and sarcastic words. But here, now, he can’t. He…well, he doesn’t know. But there’s something deep inside himself that tells him she was _it_.

He loves her.

He’s sure of it.

And he’s never laid a fucking eye on her. 

“What?” Ben finally says,

“What are you doing?” Poe looks honestly confused. And worried. 

He stands then, pushes past him. “Nothing.”

But Poe won’t let him go so easily. He reaches out a hand and grips him by the upper arm. Ben whips back around, using his size to loom over Poe. The other man is not one who is easily cowed. He knows this. It’s why he’s the leader of their little band and Ben tends to take a back seat.

Ben is awkward, usually says the wrong thing, and finds it easier to just do his job and let others do the talking.

Poe shakes his head. “Ben…” there’s a warning in his voice.

Ben sighs, slumps against the wall. “She’s in trouble, Poe,” he mutters, running his hand through his hair. He knows he must look a fright. He’s seen himself in the mirror after all, dark circles beneath his eyes, skin too pale, hair sticking out on end. He’s never a pretty sight and now he’s even less so.

“Her?” Poe asks. “That girl from Jakku.”

“Rey,” he says. “Her name is Rey. She’s in danger. I don’t know what that…that… _asshole_ …will do to her.”

“He caught her,” Poe surmises.

“Cut off the connection before I could hear much more. I just…I can feel it,” he says, taking his fist and thumping himself hard on the chest. _You can’t leave her there, Ben. You can’t_.

“Probably,” Poe admits.

Ben flinches. “Poe…”

“You’ve made up your mind,” Poe says. “About what you’re going to do.”

And Ben realizes he has. He didn’t know he had made up his mind. Not until that very moment, but now he knows. And now he can’t wait.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess I have.” He starts to shove past Poe again and once again, Poe stops him. “Poe…”

“Ben…”

He sighs, puts his hand over the other man’s for just a moment and then pulls his hand off his arm. “I have to go. I _need_ to.” When he pushes past him this time, Poe lets him go, and he breathes a sigh of relief.

But then the other man’s voice stops him.

“You’re not doing this alone.”

Ben whips around. “Pardon?”

“Come on. Let’s get out of here before anyone catches us.” Poe is moving past him then, decision clearly made. “No time for plans, my friend. We grab a ship. We go. They’ll never see it coming.”

“And they won’t come after us.”

Poe smiles then, that cocky grin that’s always gotten just a little bit under his skin. It’s the kind of grin that the ladies, and some men, find absolutely irresistible. It’s gotten him far. Ben doesn’t have that grin. He’s stone-faced, too serious, and he heard one girl call his lips _girly_ , and that’s bothered him ever since.

Smiling is foreign to Ben Solo.

“Exactly,” Poe says. And he takes the lead. He always does. 

Ben follows. And he tries to ignore the absolute _fear_ that attempts to freeze his very soul.

_I’m coming for you Rey…hang on_ …

* * *

She’s lost track of time.

A day?

A week?

A month?

She really has no idea.

She misses his voice, misses his presence, even if it’s from somewhere across the galaxy. She misses the communication array and Rose and even Paige and her sticking so close to the rules. She doesn’t find out how Plutt caught her. She’s not sure she wants to know, really. 

_It was an accident_ , she tells herself. She was careless, he just happened by. But she stared at the people who watched as he dragged her away and wondered if one of them went to him. Nothing would surprise her. It’s a dog eat dog world here, each person stepping on the backs of others to get ahead.

All in the hopes of getting off their Godforsaken little world.

Haven’t they learned that no one leaves?

She’s never been sure where those who disappear go, but now she’s pretty sure she _does_. Because this place? This is hell. The communication array was nothing compared to where Plutt has taken her to. Here she toils in the dark, sweating until she nearly collapses. It’s hot. Not just warm like the other place was, but so hot that she can sometimes feel her skin blistering even in the dark confines of where he’s stuck her.

The others there don’t talk to her.

They all conserve their breaths, their energy, their water. They get two of those a day, when they’re all given their ration of water. They slurp it up eagerly, not willing to waste one drop on washing themselves.

She can _smell_ herself.

But what does it matter as compared to the fires that they work alongside, the smell of smoke and ash clinging to everything. People down here don’t last long.

She wonders, sometimes, when she curls up to sleep, a small ball of exhaustion and misery, if it was worth it? 

And then she remembers his voice. _I bet you’re pretty_. And remembers his wishing he could meet her, and she thinks that yes, maybe it was worth it all. It was worth those moments of feeling someone cared, someone out there thought about _her_ like she thought about him.

She falls asleep most nights imagining her dark-haired prince coming for her, saving her from this life of horror. Sometimes she dreams she’s back in the communication array and things go in a different direction, one that leaves her aching for something she’ll never have. She thinks about it, sometimes, in the morning when she’s dragged out of the straw she’s made into a bed and forced back down into the mines.

_It’s worth it_ , she thinks. It has to have been.

* * *

Ben and Poe arrive on Jakku some five days after Rey was taken. Too long, Ben thinks. Far too long. She could be injured, dead. He doesn’t know.

He doesn’t even know where to find her, but he’s brimming with all this _energy_. Anger and hate and the name _Plutt_. It’s all he has. He’ll bluff his way in, rescue the princess.

_You’ll finally be the man your dad wanted you to be_.

He pushes that thought away as they come in for a landing. Those guarding the ports of Jakku, at least, are used to people coming and going. He’s had a chance to read up a bit on the planet while they’re on their way there, knows that it’s known for commerce as much as it is for slavery. 

They put orphans to work.

_Orphans_. Taken from their planet when they’re not adopted, when no one cares about them anymore, sold into a slavery that few get out of. 

He wants to save the whole damned planet.

But he knows he can’t. There’s no way to do that, change the entire way of life for an entire planet of people, even if he finds them completely reprehensible.

“State your business,” one of the armed guards says. Ben has a blaster. He’s tempted to use it. But instead Poe steps out in front of him.

“We’re looking for someone by the name of Plutt,” Poe says.

“Unkar Plutt?” The guard glances back at his ship. “Doesn’t look like one of the ships that usually come looking for him.”

“Let’s just say we have personal business with him,” Ben says, gripping the blaster a little harder in his hand.

The guard shrugs. “You’ll find him in building A, office number 27.”

Ben has no idea where that is, but thanks him regardless. “Stay here,” he says to Poe. “Guard the ship. We…we may need to take off quickly.”

For a moment Poe looks like he’s going to protest, insist on coming, but he finally sighs. “Don’t get yourself killed, Ben.”

“That’s definitely not the plan,” he says. And then he’s off, blaster strapped to his hip. 

It doesn’t take him long to find building A. It’s the largest building in the section, the top of it almost brushing the dome that covers this section of the planet. He wonders, not for the first time, what might happen if the dome collapsed, if a hole were punched in it. He knows it’s impervious to blaster shots. It has to be or anybody with access to a blaster could take the whole place out without a care in the world.

But still, he wonders.

He stalks down the hallways of the building, people getting out of his way far too easily. The people here are small, undernourished. He can see the fear on their faces as he approaches, can see the way they scurry out of his way as if they might displease him in some way. Slaves. Every last one of them. It rips a hole somewhere in his heart to see these people so cowed, so painfully alone and scared.

The office he walks into is large. It’s light and airy, with a window that opens out to a view of the dome and the shifting sands beyond. There’s a secretary there. She looks distinctly less nervous of him, watching as he enters with an almost bored expression.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asks.

Ben pulls the blaster out of the holster on his hip, points it at her. “I don’t think I need one.”

She stares at him.

He stares back.

“Plutt?” she says into some sort of intercom and Ben gives her a small half bow before striding right past her into what he assumes is Plutt’s office.

The man himself, a massive fleshy thing, is sitting behind his desk, head buried in some sort of paperwork. He looks up when Ben sets foot in the office and there’s a flash of annoyance that crosses his face for a moment.

But then Ben holds up the blaster, points it right at the man’s pig-like face. “Where is she?” His voice is pitched low.

“She?” Plutt says. He starts to stand, But Ben moves closer, the blaster coming that much closer to the man’s face.

“The woman called Rey.”

Plutt’s laugh is a dark, gritty thing. “What do you want with that scavenger?”

Ben feels a muscle in his jaw twitch. “Where is she?”

“You’re the one, aren’t you?” Plutt says. He doesn’t move from behind his desk, his hands coming up to steeple his fingers together.

“Where…is… _she_?” 

Plutt stares at him for a moment longer and Ben really has _no_ idea what the man is thinking. His eyes are narrowed slits as he watches Ben, looking first at him and then at the blaster. He suspects he’s trying to weigh his options, wondering if he’d actually strike, if he’d _actually_ shoot him. 

Finally he shrugs.

“Fine. I’ll take you to her.”

And Ben just smiles, an ugly feral thing, as he steps back and lets Plutt lead the way out of the office.

* * *

She’s exhausted.

It’s back-breaking work, shuffling her way through the mines of Jakku. She sees the other slaves, hears the whispers of just how they ended up here. The thickly muscled men, she understands. 

Well, not understands. But she can see how they’d take them directly to such a place.

But there are others like her, there for punishment. She hears of them, spoken of in hushed whispers. The elderly woman that only lasted a day, the young girl who was there just a couple weeks. She wonders how long she’ll last.

It hardly matters, really. 

Not now that she’s here. People don’t leave, they tell her, unless one of the guards takes a liking to them. There’s implications there she’d rather not address. No one has taken a liking to her anyway. She’s been kicked, pushed, shoved into the mines before she can even finish the portion they’d given her.

When they do give her something to eat. That’s not consistent. Not here.

She’s lost weight. Even in the darkness of the mines, she can feel more of her ribs. There’s a gnawing hunger in her gut that won’t go away. They simply don’t _care_ down there. The day she was so exhausted she never heard them drop off her portion, they simply hauled her to her feet and tossed her after the others into the mines.

She’ll die down here. 

It’s really as simple as that.

And for one moment, as she bends down to pick up another heavy piece of machinery, she thinks maybe that’s not such a bad thing. What is her life, anyway? Just one of drudgery and loneliness. She doesn’t have Rose or Paige anymore. She doesn’t have _him_ anymore. _Kylo_. She’ll never know his real name.

_He’s forgotten you_.

With a sigh, she heaves the bit of machinery up to her shoulder and trudges further into the mines, the near darkness almost completely enveloping her. 

As she sets to her assigned task, she thinks she hears a shout.

_Another fight_.

_Someone will be going out in a body bag._ It’s not unusual in the mines, where tensions run high and people sometimes try to break free, even though they have nowhere to go.

But then there’s another shout, a different one.

And another. 

“You can’t be here!” comes the gruff voice of one of the guards. 

And something she’s _not_ heard there. A blaster shot. Just a single one, and she hears a scream that’s quickly cut off by another blaster shot.

_Oh holy hell_.

The people in the mines are moving toward the entranceway. She goes with them, pushing her way through to the front. She blinks as her eyes adjust to the light in the room just outside the mine entrance.

There’s a man there.

Tall, broad, teeth bared in a snarl. He holds a blaster out in front of his black-clad form. “Tell me where Rey is,” he shouts, and she feels herself grow cold.

Someone pushes her forward and she falls to her knees. The man comes to stand over her and she shudders. The blaster is not pointed at her, and she watches as he looks around at the gathering group. She can see the guard slumped off to the side, burns from the blaster shots on his chest. After a moment of staring at the dead guard, she finally pulls herself to her feet.

“I’m Rey,” she says.

And the man looks…strangely relieved. She can see his shoulders, broad and muscled as they are, relax just a little. He comes to stand in front of her, looming over her even. He’s tall… _stupidly tall_.

She takes a closer look.

The long nose, the plush lips. And there, peeking out of dark hair that hangs to just below his chin… _ears_.

“Kylo?” she asks.

And he smiles then, finally. “Ben, actually.”

“I knew that wasn’t your real name.”

He makes a huffing noise.

“Your hair is longer than I imagined.”

He blinks. 

She reaches up to touch the tips of his hair. It’s soft, and she finds she wants to run her fingers through it, feel the way the long strands wind around her fingers.

She watches as he swallows hard. “I was right,” he says in response.

“Right?”

He offers a small shrug. “You _are_ pretty.”

“Oh…”

She wants to kiss him, starts to move a bit closer, when she watches as his eyes flick to the entrance to the room. Without much more than a glance, he raises the blaster and shoots another guard square in the chest.

Rey gasps.

“Can you handle a blaster?” he asks.

“Yes…I think so.” She’d never handled one before and so when Kylo…no… _Ben_ …tosses her one, she almost drops it.

“We’re going to have to fight our way out.” There’s a grimness to his voice that she’s not expecting. But she knows he’s right. Plutt won’t let her go, won’t let _anyone_ go without a fight. But Ben seems determined. No, more than determined. There’s a wildness to his eyes that speaks to something far more than just that.

She holds the blaster up, even though it feels awkward in her hand. Ben turns back to her with a small smile. He reaches for the hand that’s holding the blaster and his fingers brush hers for just a moment. She lets out a small gasp at the contact, a thrill of electricity going up her arm.

Ben just smiles.

“You need to take off the safety.” He moves it and leans a little closer to her. “All set then.”

And then they’re moving together, running away from the crowd that has gathered, down hallways she doesn’t recognize. He leads her up…far away from the minds, back to the area of the complex she knows. She trails after him, blaster at the ready. But she hasn’t had to use it.

She’s not even sure she _could_.

Could she take a life?

Ben has no such issues. The occasional guard tries to stop them and he shoots with an ease of someone used to wielding such a weapon. Half the time he barely glances before shooting and _still_ makes his mark, and she wonders just what his guiding him. How does he do it?

She’s in awe of him.

The way he moves, the way he makes sure she’s safe as they continue on.

“This way,” Rey suddenly says, stopping Ben in his tracks.

He turns back to her, puts a hand on her shoulder. “The ship is that way,” he says, nodding in the opposite direction.

Rey steals herself for this. She can’t go. Not alone. “My friends are that way.”

Ben stares at her for a moment, a dark look in his eyes. 

“I can’t leave them behind.” Rose, Paige, even Finn. She can’t let them languish here on this planet. They’re everything she’s ever known and they deserve their freedom too. Everyone there does, really, and she has this moment of _guilt_ that she has to push back. They can’t save everyone.

But they can save her friends. They _have_ to.

“Rey,” he says.

“Ben. Please.” She doesn’t know what else to say. He’s _here_. He’s ready to save her, take her away to a life someplace else.

When one of his shoulders drops slightly, she knows that he’s agreeing. But then he wraps his arm around her waist, pulls her in close and they stare at each other for a moment. “I want to…” he says, choking on the last word.

“I do too,” she responds with.

And then he leans down and presses his forehead to hers. She can feel his breath on her face, and she wants to kiss him. But then he releases her, and takes a deep breath. She can see the color high on his cheeks,

“Lead the way,” he says.

With a nod, Rey turns and races down the hallways. Her blaster is at the ready. She doesn’t need it. Not yet at least. Most people get out of her way and those that don’t, get out of _Ben’s_ way. He really is stupidly tall _and_ stupidly broad. There are muscles beneath that black shirt he’s wearing that Rey really would very much like to see.

She can feel the blush spreading over her cheeks as she continues down toward the communications room. No time to think of that now. She has to get her friends out. _Then_ she can think about the implications of Ben coming from somewhere across the galaxy to save her, to save her friends simply because he wanted to.

There’s so much to unpack there.

He follows behind her, occasionally turning his blaster on someone who tries to confront them. Most fall back. One guard rushes him and she’s surprised to see him raise the butt end of the blaster and clock the guy in the head with it. He goes down like a sack of potatoes.

“Impressive,” she says.

He shrugs.

When she gets to the communications room, she finds Rose there fiddling with it as she always does. And she’s such a sight for sore eyes that she chokes a little on her name.

“Rey?” Rose says as she turns toward her. Then her eyes widen as she takes in Ben standing just behind her. “Who…”

“This is Ben.”

Ben nods.

Rose’s face screws up in clear confusion. “Ben…”

“You know him as Kylo.”

And then Rose’s eyes widen, an almost comic thing. Rey actually chuckles a little. “Come on, Rose. We don’t have time for this.”

“What are we doing?” Rose asks, hesitating near the comm panel. 

“We’re getting you out of here,” Ben says.

“Get your sister,” Rey tells Rose, reaching out a hand to pull her along with them. “Get Finn. We have to go. _Now_.”

Rose still looks like she might balk. It’s the only life they’ve known. Leaving won’t be easy. It will be utterly terrifying. Rey has no doubt of it. But they have to. _She_ has to. She can’t live in this place another moment.

“Rose,” she says. “You deserve this. You all do.”

“What about…” Rose starts to say.

“Everyone else?” She glances over at Ben. 

He nods. “We’ll fight for them. But we can’t if we get killed here.”

Rose watches him for another moment. “How can I trust you?”

Ben stops, watches her. His eyes flit to Rey for a moment, and then back to Rose. “You can’t,” he says with a shrug. “But I’m the only chance you have to get out of here.”

“You trust him?” Rose asks, turning to Rey. She nods. “Good enough for me. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”

She scurries off, and Rey turns back to Ben. “Thank you.”

He nods. “I just hope we can get out of here.” He’s standing by the door, blaster clutched tightly in one hand, staring out at the hallway that Rose had just disappeared down.

“We will.” She doesn’t know why she’s so confident. She just…is. She can’t help it. There’s something about him, the way he confidently handles the blaster, the way he seems to know exactly what to do at any given moment. He exudes a sort of confidence that she finds unbelievably provocative.

Which is why, when she steps closer to him, she’s surprised to see his look go just a tad bit wary. He steps back, his eyes widen, his lips part just a little. “Rey?” His voice comes out soft, a little higher-pitched than she’s used to.

And then she steps into his space, wraps her arms around him. He makes a choking sound and wraps the arm not holding a blaster around her waist. She likes the feel of him. Tall and broad and so strong. She can feel the muscles beneath her cheek where it rests on his chest, can feel the strong muscles of his back. He’ll keep them safe. She knows it. 

He says her name again and it sounds like a sigh.

But then there are the sound of footsteps and she jumps away from him.

“Rey?” Paige asks as she rushes toward them. “What is this?”

“A rescue,” she says and is surprised when Ben’s hand comes out to grab hers. Paige glances down. So does Rose and then Finn as he brings up the rear.

“A rescue?” Finn says and then lets out a soft “Whoo! Let’s go!” 

Ben smirks, Rey glances up at him, the look on her face mirroring his.

“It’s like that, is it?” Rose says softly.

“It is,” Rey responds with.

“Come on,” Ben says. “We need to go. Now.”

The next however many minutes of her life are probably the most harrowing Rey ever experiences. Ben takes the lead, Rey brings up the rear. Rose, Paige, and Finn aren’t armed. She needs them to keep a cool head, get out of the way, let Ben handle most. And her. She’ll kill for them, she realizes.

And she does, taking out a few people on the way through to wherever Ben has left his ship. They’re not good people. She has to keep reminding herself of that, every time she sees one go down. They’ve enslaved them, kept them in veritable chains. Some of them no have taken shifts in the mines where the people are not just enslaved, but mistreated, abused, and often neglected until they die from sheer exhaustion or starvation…or both.

“This way!” Ben says, turning down a hallway she’s never been down before. Rose turns around to look at her for a moment.

“Just follow him!” Rey shouts.

“Behind you!” Ben says and she doesn’t know how he knows they’re there. He’s not even looking. 

But he’s right. She turns and sees the two guards coming up behind them. One stops, aims his weapon at her, and Rey shoots. The blaster shot goes wide, hits a panel behind him and as sparks fly out, the man ducks, turns toward it.

Rey shoots again.

This time she connects with his shoulder and he goes down with a shout.

She’s aiming for the other when a blaster shot flies past her and takes him out, square to the chest. She looks back to Ben and he’s still racing forward. But she can see that he’s pulling his arm back into place, that he’d shot without looking and _hit him_.

She has no idea what it means.

It sends a shiver down her spine.

There’s so much she doesn’t know about him, and at the same time she feels so connected to him.

They all keep running, racing toward something they cannot quite fathom. 

Freedom.

Freedom and a chance at a new life, whatever it may be. When they round another corner, the ship is there. Ben slows down and she can see him breathe a sigh of relief.

“Stop!” comes the voice of one of the guards. And then several are filing in, one after another, blasters trained on the group of them. Five. Ten. They’re outnumbered, two blasters against a dozen or more. What hope do they have?

Ben keeps his blaster trained on them and she watches as he reaches one long arm out and shoves Rose, Paige and Finn behind them. “Poe will open the ramp soon. Make a run for it as soon as you can.”

Rey comes to stand next to him, blaster at the ready.

“You too,” he says to her. 

“Ben…”

“No. We’ve come this far. I won’t let them take you.” She’s about to protest when he reaches out one hand and lightly touches her face. “Please.”

She nods.

“Drop your weapons!” one of the guards shouts.

Ben holds his blaster up, loosens his grip slightly. She can’t let him do this, can’t let them take _him_ , enslave him. He’ll either be put to death or tossed in the mines. She can’t have that. And so she does the only thing she can think of. She points her blaster at the guard in the lead and fires.

“Rey, no!” Ben shouts.

Behind her, she hears a commotion, and turns. The guards are starting to fire on them and Ben races toward the ship, shooting into the crowd. One guard clips his shoulder and she shouts as he lets out a grunt of pain.

The ramp lowers.

“Looking for me?” comes a voice from above them.

Rey looks up, finds a handsome young man there, roguish grin on his unshaven face. 

“About damned time!” Ben shouts. “Go!” he says to the rest of them.

Rose and Paige, along with Finn, don’t hesitate. They race up the ramp. Rey follows, still firing on the guards. And then she’s in the ship, behind Poe. 

“Come on, Ben!” Poe shouts. “You don’t have to get them all!”

And he doesn’t. He takes one more shot at the nearest guard and then turns, racing up the ramp on long legs that eat up the ground quickly. A shot goes off near him and Poe curses. “Stop shooting at my ship!”

The ramp closes with a loud bang.

Poe races toward the cockpit to fire the ship up. “We have no time to waste! Get in here and strap in!” he shouts over his shoulder.

Rey pushes her friends ahead of her. “Go on then,” she says. Rose turns to look at her for a moment, concern in her eyes, before Finn grabs Rose’s hand and tugs her after him. Paige follows a little more slowly, throwing a glance of her shoulder. “I’m fine,” Rey says.

More than fine, really. Paige nods and then races after her sister and Finn. And Rey turns back to Ben.

Ben…not Kylo. She’ll have to ask him sometime where that name came from, what sort of weird invention it was. Ben, she thinks, suits him better. “You _are_ stupidly tall,” she says as she looks up at him.

He shrugs. “I told you.” And then he smiles. It’s the first she’s seen, just a small quirking up of his generous lips on one side. It changes his whole face and she can’t stop herself from reaching out, putting a hand on his cheek. His smile widens.

“Rey…I…” 

She shakes her head, her hand cupping his cheek a little bit more. “You saved us.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” he counters with.

“We will be.” She has no doubt of it. They got this far, maybe with luck as much as skill. Rey’s still not sure how she managed to evade capture or worse. Definitely luck.

“You have a lot of faith in me,” he whispers

“You _came_ for me,” she says. “No one has ever come for me. You can’t…You don’t know…I’ve always been so alone…” Her voice trails off, and she can feel the familiar tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

“You’re not,” he says.

“Not?” She looks up to see him watching her. There’s a fire behind his eyes. He leans a little closer to her, puts his hand over hers and it’s so large and warm. She wants to just lean into him, wrap him around her and know she’ll never be cold and alone again.

“Not alone. You’re not. You won’t be. I promise.”

“Neither are you,” she whispers. And then she’s going up on her tiptoes, drawing his mouth down toward her. She has no idea what she’s doing, really, so she’s not surprised when he stops her.

“Rey…”

“I…oh fuck, you don’t want to…” She starts to pull back and he tightens his hand over hers.

“Rey…this isn’t just…I don’t know. You’re not just doing this just to thank me?” He flinches with the words and for a moment she feels sad. She wonders who’s hurt him, who’s made him so tentative, so mistrusting.

“No,” she says, and is rewarded with a soft smile.

“Really?”

She laughs. “Yes, really. Now will you just kiss me? I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Waiting? For how long?” His voice is so earnest, so curious, his eyes searching hers for something. She’s not sure what exactly.

“Since ‘fuck’ I think.”

He laughs and it’s an amazing sound. Lighthearted, beautiful. She likes the way his eyes scrunch up at the corners, likes the way it bares his slightly imperfect teeth. He looks younger, less worried.

And then he finally leans down and presses his lips to hers. It’s just the soft brushing of his lips against hers, but it promises a thousand more. He wraps his arms around her, drawing her close against him.

The ship shifts beneath them and Ben reaches out an arm to steady them against the wall, one arm still wrapped tightly around her. As they flee the only world she can remember, wrapped tightly in Ben’s arms, she realizes she finally feels safe. 


End file.
